cotton. Between 1760 and 1830 the production of cotton textiles increased
twelvefold, making the product Britain’s leading export. At the same time,
other inventions comparably raised the production of iron, and the amount
of coal mined increased fourfold. By 1830 this Industrial Revolution had
turned Britain into the “workshop of the world.”
The towns that spread across northwestern England, lowland Scotland, and
southern Wales accustomed a generation of workers to factory life. The
advantages were more regular hours, higher wages than those received by
handicraft workers or farm laborers, and less dependence on human muscle
power; many machines could be operated by women and children. The
disadvantages included the devaluation of old artisan skills, a new
emphasis on discipline and punctuality, and a less personal relationship
between employer and employee. For several decades also, such civic
amenities as water and sewage systems did not keep pace with the growth of
population. London remained Britain’s largest city, a center of commerce,
shipping, justice, and administration more than of industry. Its
population, estimated at 600,000 in 1701, had grown to 950,000 by 1801, and
to 2.5 million by 1851, making it the largest city in the world. By then,
Britain had become the first large nation to have more urban than rural
inhabitants.
The Early Years of King George III
In 1760, the aged George II was succeeded by his 22-year-old grandson,
George III. The new British-born king had a deep sense of moral duty and
tried to play a direct role in governing his country. To this end he
appointed men he trusted, such as his onetime Scottish tutor, Lord Bute,
who became prime minister in 1762. Bute’s ministry was not a success,
however, and four short-lived ministries followed until 1770, when George
found, in Lord North, a leader pleasing both to him and to the majority of
Parliament.
During the 1760s, politicians out of office spurred a campaign of criticism
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expansion of the right to vote, and an increase in the frequency of
meetings of Parliament.
The American Revolution
The fears expressed by Wilkes’s supporters confirmed the more radical
American colonial leaders in their suspicion of the British government.
Long accustomed to a considerable degree of self-government and freed,
after 1763, from the French danger, they resented the attempts by
successive British ministries to make them pay a share of the cost of
imperial defense in the form of assorted taxes and duties. They also
resented British attempts to enforce mercantilistic regulations and to
treat colonial legislatures as secondary to the government in London.
American resistance led in due course to the calling of the First
Continental Congress in 1774 and the commencement of hostilities the
following year. Although parliamentary critics such as Edmund Burke
continued to urge conciliation, the king and Lord North felt the rebellious
colonists had to be brought to their senses.
British governmental authority in the 13 colonies collapsed in 1775.
Although British forces were able to occupy first Boston and later New York
City and Philadelphia, the Americans did not give up. After the defeat of
General John Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, the civil war within the British
Empire became an international one. First the French (1778), then the
Spanish (1779), and the Dutch (1780) joined the anti-British side, while
other powers formed a League of Armed Neutrality. For the first time in
more than a century, the British were diplomatically isolated. After
General Charles Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown in 1781, opposition at
home to the frustrations and high taxation brought on by the American war
compelled Lord North to resign and his successors to sign a new Treaty of
Paris in 1783. The 13 colonies were recognized as independent states and
were granted all British territory south of the Great Lakes. Florida and
Minorca were ceded to Spain and some West Indian islands and African ports
to France.
Pitt, Reform, and Revolution
In the wake of the war, many old institutions were reexamined. The
Economical Reform Act of 1782 reduced the patronage powers of the king and
his ministers. The Irish Parliament, controlled by Anglo-Irish Protestants,
won a greater degree of independence. The India Act in 1784 gave ultimate
authority over British India to the government instead of the English East
India Company. The India Act was sponsored by William Pitt the Younger, who
was named prime minister late in 1783 at the age of 24. Pitt remained in
office for most of the rest of his life and did much to shape the modern
prime ministership. In the aftermath of the American war, he restored faith
in the government’s ability to pay interest on the much-increased national
debt, and he set up the first consolidated annual budget. Pitt was also
sympathetic to political reform, repeal of restrictions on non-Anglican
Protestants, and abolition of the slave trade, but when these measures
failed to win a parliamentary majority, he dropped them.
Reformers, such as Charles James Fox and Thomas Paine, were inspired by the
revolution that began in France in 1789, but others, such as Edmund Burke,
became fearful of all radical change. Pitt was less concerned with French
ideas than actions, and when the French revolutionary army invaded the
Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) and declared war on England in February
1793, a decade of moderate reform in Britain gave way to 22 years of all-
out war.
The Napoleonic Wars
In the 1790s, the wars of the French Revolution merged into the Napoleonic
Wars, as Napoleon Bonaparte took over the French revolutionary government.
Pitt’s First Coalition (with Prussia, Austria, and Russia) against the
French collapsed in 1796, and in 1797 Britain was beset by naval defeat, by
naval mutiny, and by French invasion attempts. The war caused a boom in
farm production and in certain industries. At the same time it caused rapid
inflation: Wage rates lagged behind prices, and Poor Law expenses grew. In
1797 the Bank of England was forced to suspend the payment of gold for
paper currency, and Parliament voted the first income tax. Rebellion and a
French invasion threat led to the Act of Union with Ireland (1801). The
Dublin legislature was abolished, and 100 Irish representatives became
members of the Parliament in London; only an Irish viceroy and a London-
appointed administration remained in Dublin.
Despite the defeat of the French in the Battle of the Nile in 1798, the war
did not go well for Britain. The Second Coalition collapsed in 1801, and
Britain made peace with Napoleon at Amiens the following year. War broke
out again the following year, but between 1805 and 1807 the Third Coalition
also collapsed. Napoleon’s plans to invade Britain were foiled by the
British naval victory under Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar. Napoleon then
sought to drive Britain into bankruptcy with his Continental System.
Difficulties in enforcing that system prompted Napoleon’s invasion of
Russia in 1812. This led to the Fourth Coalition (Britain, Russia, Austria,
and Prussia) and to Napoleon’s downfall two years later. Britain’s
contribution included an army led by the duke of Wellington fighting in
Spain and, after Napoleon’s return from exile in Elba, the Battle of
Waterloo in June 1815. The War of 1812 with the United States was for
Britain a sideshow that brought no territorial changes.
A Century of Peace
At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, King George III, by then insane, had
been succeeded by his eldest son, who reigned first as prince regent and
then as King George IV. Although a patron of art and Regency architecture,
the prince regent became unpopular because of his gluttony and his personal
immorality. His attempt to divorce his wife, Caroline of Brunswick,
provided much cause for scandal.
Postwar Government (1815-1830)
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, presided as Tory prime
minister from 1812 to 1827, over a cabinet of luminaries including Viscount
Castlereagh, the foreign secretary, who represented Britain at the Congress
of Vienna (1815). Former Dutch possessions such as the Cape of Good Hope
and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) were added to the British Empire, and a balance
of power was restored to continental Europe. Although eager to consult its
European partners about possible territorial changes, Britain soon made it
clear that it had no desire to join the Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria, and
Prussia) in policing Europe.
Rapid demobilization after the wars, economic depression, and bad harvests
led to rioting in 1816. The Liverpool government sought to aid landlords
with protective tariffs (the Corn Laws of 1815) and to aid other supporters
by repealing the wartime income tax in 1817 and restoring the gold standard
in 1819. The so-called Six Acts in 1819 curbed the freedom of the press and
the rights of assembly. A giant political protest demonstration near
Manchester that year was broken up by the militia. The economy recovered
during the early 1820s, and government policies became more moderate.
George Canning, who replaced Castlereagh as foreign secretary, welcomed the
independence of Spain’s South American colonies and aided the Greek
rebellion against Turkish rule—a cause also hailed by romantic poets such
